Haidari and Minister for Immigration and Border Protection

This matter concerned an application for Australian citizenship by conferral. The applicant, Mr Haidari, had his approval for citizenship cancelled by the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection on the grounds that he was not of good character. The Minister’s delegate formed this view based on the applicant’s involvement in sponsoring a spousal visa application where the accompanying death and marriage certificates were found to be not genuine, as they featured the same witness but with different identification details. The applicant sought review of this decision before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was whether the Minister had sufficient grounds to cancel the applicant's approval for Australian citizenship under section 25(2)(b)(iii) of the *Australian Citizenship Act 2007* (Cth), which permits cancellation if the Minister is satisfied that the applicant is not of good character at the time the Minister proposes to cancel the approval. This required the Tribunal to determine the meaning of "good character" in this context and to assess whether the evidence presented established that the applicant lacked this quality at the relevant time.

The Tribunal considered the legislative provisions and relevant case law, including the definition of "good character" from *Irving v Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs*, which refers to enduring moral qualities rather than public reputation. The Tribunal noted that while the applicant's involvement with potentially fraudulent documents was a serious concern, the evidence regarding the applicant's personal involvement in the creation or presentation of these documents was not definitively established. The Tribunal also had regard to the applicant's evidence of his positive community involvement and lack of prior criminal history. Ultimately, the Tribunal found that the respondent had not discharged the onus of proving that the applicant was not of good character at the time the Minister proposed to cancel the approval.

Accordingly, the Tribunal set aside the decision under review and remitted the matter to the decision-maker with a direction that the applicant be considered a person of good character for the purposes of paragraph 25(2)(b)(iii) of the *Australian Citizenship Act 2007*.